Politics

Wednesday, 4th February 2009

Fraser Nelson reviews the week in politics

It takes more than an inch of snow to stop the wheels of Scottish democracy. The devolved parliament was hard at work on Monday morning, eight of its members engaged on a most sombre business: a motion formally denouncing a rogue political columnist. It reads as follows:

"That the Parliament notes that the journalist, Fraser Nelson, in comments on The Spectator’s Coffee House blog… referred to Castlemilk and Easterhouse as “beautiful names, scummy estates” draws Mr Nelson’s attention to… a motion which celebrated Castlemilk High Schools 2008 HM Inspectorate of Education report…and to motion which highlighted the recent award of the International Scotswomen of the Year title to Mary Miller, a former Castlemilk resident…and considers that Mr Nelson’s rudeness towards the communities of Castlemilk and Easterhouse is outstripped only by his ignorance of them."

To trawl the internet and denounce offending phrases is, alas, not an atypical pastime for MSPs. Rather than seek new solutions to the appalling poverty in east Glasgow (whose ghettoes have the lowest life expectancy in the developed world), Scotland’s legislators attack those who draw attention to the problem. Devolution has hardly given Castlemilk bold new champions. Its first MSP, a young Labour peer, stepped down after being imprisoned for fire-raising. Its new representative, Charlie Gordon, was recently found to have paid £13,000 of public money to his son’s internet firm. He is the author of the above motion.

I crept on his radar, I suspect, not initially because of the blog but when I joined a BBC Radio Scotland debate on whether children in these deprived estates should be given a £10,000 education voucher. This was the proposal by Reform Scotland, a new (and rather optimistically named) think-tank. I was all for it, arguing that the desire to do what’s best for one’s child is a basic, powerful human instinct felt as strongly in Bearsden and Milngavie (two of Glasgow’s richest estates) as in Easterhouse and Castlemilk (two of the poorest).

Conditions in these two estates are beyond doubt: they are living tableaux of the way the unreformed welfare state makes poverty permanent. Most adults there are living on benefits. Two in five mothers smoke throughout pregnancy. A boy born in either estate is likely to die sooner than one born in Kazakhstan, North Korea or Romania. And it was a Castlemilk resident named Mick, with whom I used to work the 5 a.m. shift in a Royal Mail sorting office, who first pointed out the paradox. ‘Why is it,’ he once asked, ‘that this city’s scummiest estates have the nicest names?’

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jahdkjahfaskdbf

February 5th, 2009 11:25am Report this comment

I think this is wrong-you left out the motion itself.

Andrew Cadman

February 5th, 2009 4:38pm Report this comment

Excellent article Fraser.

However, I would add that the pernicious nature of collective pay bargaining does not stop there: the Teaching Unions demand that teachers are paid equally regardless of discipline. Hence someone with a good Maths degree who has several well renumerated alternatives to teaching gets paid the same as an art teacher who does not. The result of course, is that very few properly qualified teachers can be found to teach Maths, Physics or IT, particularly at A level. This is a major reason for the decline of science teaching in schools generally.

Chris

February 5th, 2009 6:04pm Report this comment

>The Scottish Parliament, of course, can opt out of any reform.

Nope. The Westminster Parliament can't pass any laws affecting Scottish education. That's why Scottish Reform is on a hiding to nothing. If you think the English teaching unions are powerful, you should live up here. We're screwed, as you go on to note.

Stephen

February 6th, 2009 12:16am Report this comment

I have to laugh at the
'progressive' MSPs who think the way forward is to emulate the failed policies of the old Eastern Bloc countries. It's sickening that politicians - those who disagree with the status quo that is - won't face up to the teaching unions, who ruin the life chances of the most vulnerable kids in order to enforce dogma and protect incompetent teachers.

palepete

February 6th, 2009 1:14pm Report this comment

Fraser is correct. Unfortunately his assessment of Scotland is correct. I left Glasgow with a sigh of relief in 1965. Even then these estates were dreadful - the nation dominated by a gruesome combination of Holy Willy presbyterians and the Glasgow Labour party. Unfortunately the Scotland of my youth has not moved forward - worse - it has inflicted its bizarre views on England for half of the 45 years I have thankfully been residing in England - the most tolerant nation on earth surely to put up with them.

JohnAnt

February 6th, 2009 11:45pm Report this comment

I see that Mary Miller herself, the recipient of the award, appears to be in no doubt of the challenges presented by Castlemilk Estate. She spoke at the award dinner of the 'poverty and deprivation' of the place. She was given the award for her work among the people there and in...Zimbabwe!

Colin Gillies Edinburgh

February 7th, 2009 2:38pm Report this comment

Thank you for highlighting the problems with both the Scottish Parliament and the scottish educational system. I was one of the lucky people who went to what was one of the last of the senior secondaries in Edinburgh when the examination system produced pupils who were as good if not better than privately educated students. The problem on these estates is that even if the senior secondaries were resurrected is that many of the people living on them would not care what kind of education their children have.

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